Sunday recipe: easy as apple pie

Apple pie is that one dessert that gets overlooked on restaurant menus all over the globe, especially if a brownie is preening anywhere nearby.

Restaurants often get apple pie woefully wrong. It is either too sour or too sweet or too mushy, which is why we are left with no choice but to construct the perfect Goldilocks apple pie at home. Do not be put off by what appears to be arduous labour. Mixing the ingredients to make the dough takes five minutes. And if you are astute enough to sandwich the dough between two pieces of cling wrap as you roll it out, putting it together becomes strangely therapeutic.

Don’t have a 24cm pie dish? Buy one. Any round 8- or 9-inch pan will suffice, but there is something aesthetically pleasing about a proper pie dish. Heat up your oven to 180C/350F. As always, keep your ingredients at room temperature.

You don’t have to use a mixer to make pie dough, but it will help if you do. On medium speed, cream together 4oz unsalted butter, 1Tbs vegetable/sunflower oil and 2oz sugar. Add 1 egg with 1tsp vanilla extract. Your mixture will look curdled at this stage. Fear not.

Add 10oz flour mixed with 1tsp baking powder. Mix on low speed until it has come together into one big ball of dough. (If you are deprived of a mixer and have really powerful biceps, you can throw all of these items together in a large bowl and knead them by hand as you would with aata.) Divide the dough into 2 equal balls. Wrap each ball with clingfilm and refrigerate.

Meanwhile, peel and cut into cubes 4 large apples. Sprinkle 1tsp cinnamon and 3oz sugar on top of the apples and set aside.

Now comes the most daunting part – but you can do this. Spread a sheet of clingfilm about the width of your pie dish onto the counter. Take your balls of dough out of the fridge. Unwrap one ball and place it on the clingfilm. Press down until it resembles a thick disc. Take a second piece of clingfilm – roughly the same dimensions as the first, although there is no need to go looking for a ruler – and place it on top of your disc of dough. Once in place, roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it is roughly the same diameter as your pie dish.

Slide your hand under the bottom layer of clingfilm and lift up the dough with your palm. Because it’s held together in place by the clingfilm on both sides, the dough won’t fall to pieces. Peel off the top layer of clingfilm and flip the dough onto the pie dish. Then peel off the remaining clingfilm layer. That’s your bottom layer done!

Place your cut apples on the dough-layered pie dish. Repeat the dough-layering process with your remaining ball of dough. Once your top layer is on, brush it with 1 beaten egg mixed with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Bake at 180C for 25 minutes. Soak in the aroma of cinnamon-vanilla goodness, as you cut yourself a slice, pile on some vanilla ice cream or cold custard, and dig in.

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